Well, Can't I at Least Say "You Look Mah-velous?"

By Joel Stein/New York City

In the middle of comedy Thursday--when Al Gore did Rosie and Regis, Bush did Letterman, and both candidates did the roast-like Al Smith dinner--they separately taped halves of a conversation for an introduction to Sunday Nov. 5's Saturday Night Live's Presidential Bash 2000. Both played to their stereotypes not only on camera but off camera as well. After just one insipid sentence--"Hi, I'm Al Gore, Democratic candidate for President"--Gore began micromanaging. "I thought that line was out," he said. Meanwhile, Bush asked SNL writer Jim Downey to include even more malapropisms. After stumbling over the nonword "ambilavent," Bush turned to the crowd and said, "I don't know why I'm having trouble. That's usually how I say it anyway." And Downey had to talk Bush out of adding a previously deleted joke--turning "solemn bond" into "solemn bondage." Downey felt it didn't work with Gore's sigh. "For Gore to sigh in reaction to a mispronunciation, and at a weird sex joke, was not the best," said Downey. "I still wonder why they agreed to do it."

--By Joel Stein/New York City